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Archive for the ‘Health Care Debate’ Category

President Obama wants lawmakers to remove state specific projects inserted in the health care legislation. Congress should include a line-item veto provision in the reconciliation bill to force him to cut these – if the health care bill gets to his desk.

His call for this action is window dressing. Polls are showing the voters are upset about “back room deals” in Congress plus the excessive spending.

In case you were busy decorating your Christmas tree it was Obama’s senior staff in the back room with Senator Reid putting these state specific projects in the health care bill to get the votes for passage on Christmas Eve.

President Obama always calls for spending restraint and an end to earmarks. But when Congress passed a nearly $410 billion omnibus spending bill in 2009 with about 9,000 earmarks totaling $5 billion he signed it.

Remember the 2008 presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi? “We need earmark reform,” Obama said. “And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.”

A line-item force of law is about the only way these state specific projects will come out of the health care bill.

Members of Congress look forward to August when they go home. It has become a tradition. But 2009 is different. The debate in Washington over health care has now spilled over to the towns and villages throughout America.

Peggy Noonan points out in her Saturday Wall Street Journal piece there is a “new tone in the debate, it’s ugly”.

No wonder. President Obama never put forward a bill. Democrats in the House are fighting among themselves over the issue. Six Senators have negotiated for months and never produced a bill.

That has created an environment of confusion which has led to the ugly greetings Members of Congress are getting at home.